Pakistan should invite India for dialogue on Kashmir: Aziz

Islamabad, Aug 12 (IANS) Pakistan’s top foreign affairs advisor on Friday said Islamabad “should invite New Delhi for a dialogue on Jammu and Kashmir dispute”.

Sartaj Aziz, advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, further emphasised that Islamabad will continue to support the Kashmiri people for their “self determination”, Aziz was quoted as saying in a foreign office statement.

The advisor said that “our Foreign Secretary (Aizaz Chaudhary) would formally be writing to his (Indian) counterpart in this regard”.

Aziz also said that Pakistan is prepared to consider translating unilateral moratorium into a bilateral arrangement with India on non-testing of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan on Thursday said it had written to the Arab League highlighting the “horrific” Indian brutalities in Kashmir and asked its member countries to intervene.

Aziz, in a letter to the Secretary-General of Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the current unrest in the valley was a “manifestation of continued and long-held alienation” of the Kashmiris, the statement said.

The current situation in Kashmir, he said, was the result of the continued denial by India of the right to self-determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir that was promised to them by the UN Security Council in relevant resolutions.

“The current uprising in Kashmir is not an isolated incident but a manifestation of continued deep, widespread and long-held alienation of the oppressed people of the area from the Indian occupation,” Aziz maintained.

He said the spontaneous and massive uprising was a manifestation that the struggle of Kashmiris is totally indigenous which cannot be equated with terrorism.